NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 “GB202” Chip Found Defective in Certain Units; Potential Issue Across All Variants

NVIDIA’s latest trouble with their GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs seems to have taken another turn for the worse. It appears the "Blackwell" GB202 chip present in many units is showing signs of defects.

NVIDIA’s Top-of-the-Line RTX Blackwell GPU Faces ROP Issues in GPU-Z and Other Tests; Rumors Suggest the GB202 Chip is the Culprit

When will gamers catch a break in the GPU market? First, there were inventory challenges, with the flagship RTX Blackwell model barely trickling into the market. Now, reports are coming in about potential defects in NVIDIA’s chips that are causing noticeable performance drops. We recently highlighted a ZOTAC GeForce RTX 5090 showing these problems. @MEGAsizeGPU has now chimed in, suggesting the core issue is with the GB202 chip—let’s delve into that.

According to @MEGAsizeGPU’s insights on Twitter, there’s a problem stemming directly from the chip. A portion of the GB202 units appears defective, and there’s nothing the bios can do to fix this issue.

For those not in the loop, the GeForce RTX 5090 has been cropping up online with fewer Render Output Units (ROPs) in GPU-Z. This situation means affected consumers are stuck with a model that just doesn’t perform as well as the others. Initially, some thought GPU-Z was misreporting certain variants. However, the latest word is that this isn’t a tool issue at all, but rather a problem with the GB202 chip—definitely not the news anyone wanted to hear.

Backing up this claim, testing with HWINFO on an impacted RTX 5090 variant also revealed reduced ROPs, signifying a more significant hindrance than previously thought. It appears, at this stage, that a small number of specific SKU models are involved, but there’s concern that the issue might not be confined to a single manufacturer. Rumor has it all variants, maybe even including the Founders Edition, could be at risk.

So, what’s next? We’ve reached out to NVIDIA for further clarity. Since the issue seems to sit with the GB202 chip, we anticipate they’ll offer replacements under RMA. Fingers crossed this bug doesn’t escalate, as NVIDIA is already contending with production delays in their "mid-range" GPUs due to performance hiccups.

We urge our readers to inspect their models. If your ROP count falls short of 176, drop us a line. Unfortunately, as this situation unfolds, we’re still unsure if it extends to other models like the GeForce RTX 5080. Stay tuned for more developments.